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Sidekick vs. InDesign's Built-in AI Assistant

In short:

  • Adobe’s built-in AI Assistant is limited to 25 prompts per day, English only, and beta only. Sidekick has no prompt limits.
  • Sidekick lets you choose your AI assistant. Adobe chooses for you.
  • Your assistant can combine Sidekick with other tools in a single workflow — the built-in assistant can’t.
  • With Sidekick, data about your document goes directly to the AI provider you chose. Adobe’s assistant sends it to Adobe’s servers.

What Adobe announced

In April 2026, Adobe introduced two separate AI features, which is worth clarifying because they’re easy to confuse.

The first is an in-app AI Assistant built directly into InDesign Beta. It answers questions about InDesign and can perform certain tasks within the app. It’s limited to 25 prompts per day (250 per month), works in English only, and uses a model of Adobe’s choosing.

The second is the Firefly AI Assistant, a cross-app creative agent that works across Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and other Creative Cloud apps. InDesign is not included at launch.

Both are interesting. Neither is the same thing as Sidekick.

A different approach

Sidekick is not an AI. It’s infrastructure — a connection between InDesign and the AI assistant you already use.

When you work with Sidekick, the AI is Claude (or any other compatible assistant you’ve configured). It reasons about your request, writes code to carry it out, and Sidekick executes that code directly inside InDesign. The AI brings the intelligence; Sidekick provides the connection.

Adobe’s built-in assistant works differently. The model, its capabilities, and its limits are all decided by Adobe. You get whatever the assistant can do, within whatever constraints Adobe has set. There’s no way to swap the model, extend its capabilities, or lift the prompt limits.

Why prompt limits matter in practice

The built-in assistant allows 25 prompts per day. That sounds like a lot until you’re actually working on something.

Production work is iterative. You ask Claude to build a layout, check the result, refine it, catch an edge case, adjust the approach. Sidekick usage data shows that users average 47 executions per session — and nearly half of all sessions would exceed Adobe’s 25-prompt daily cap. On a heavy day, you’d hit the ceiling before lunch.

Sidekick has no prompt limits. The limits that apply are those of the AI provider you’ve chosen — the same limits you already work within everywhere else you use that assistant.

Full access to InDesign’s scripting layer

Sidekick gives your AI assistant access to everything InDesign’s scripting layer supports. If you want to process an entire document’s worth of text frames, apply a custom typographic rule that doesn’t exist in any menu, or build a layout from structured data, your assistant can write the code and Sidekick runs it.

Sidekick also has a snapshot tool: your assistant can take a screenshot of the current page, look at it, and adjust its approach based on what it sees. That visual feedback loop makes it possible to work on layouts in a genuinely iterative way.

The model question

Sidekick works with Claude today. If a better model becomes available tomorrow — from Anthropic or anyone else — you can use that instead. You’re not tied to any particular provider or model version.

Adobe’s assistant uses whatever model Adobe has licensed. You have no visibility into what that is, and no way to change it.

More than just InDesign

Because Sidekick connects to your AI assistant rather than being one, it benefits from everything else your assistant can do. AI assistants that support tool use — like Claude — can combine Sidekick with other tools in a single workflow.

For example: mathematical typesetting. Claude uses a LaTeX tool to render equations as vector graphics, then uses Sidekick to place them in your InDesign layout with proper baseline alignment. Neither tool knows about the other — Claude orchestrates both.

This kind of workflow isn’t possible with a self-contained AI assistant. It requires an AI that can reach outside InDesign when the task demands it.

Data and document content

This is worth understanding before you start working.

Adobe’s built-in AI Assistant requires an internet connection and processes every prompt on Adobe’s servers. Your document content — text, structure, whatever you’ve asked about — leaves your machine with each interaction. Adobe’s terms state they won’t use this content to train generative AI models, but the specifics of what’s transmitted and how it’s stored aren’t fully documented.

There’s also a broader clause to be aware of: Section 4.3B of Adobe’s General Terms grants them rights to reproduce, create derivative works from, and sublicense cloud content for “internal analysis” and “product improvement.” This applies to content stored or processed through Adobe’s cloud services. It’s opt-out, not opt-in.

With Sidekick, the plugin runs locally inside InDesign and your content goes directly to the AI provider you’ve chosen — no intermediary. The data handling is governed by your agreement with that provider, which you can read and evaluate yourself.

Questions?

Reach us at [email protected].